There are several factors that can affect your invite acceptance rate. Please try the following tips:
(1) Add a pleasing & professional headshot
A picture is worth thousand words. Please add a picture to your profile if not already done.
(2) Add a personal note
People want to know why they should accept your invite. Adding a short and compelling personal note in the invite really helps. LinkedIn allows up to 300 words. Please make best use of it and consider this as your elevator pitch. You can save multiple invite messages in We-connect and use them for different campaigns.
(3) Write an effective profile headline
Review your LinkedIn profile. The space below your name and your profile picture are where your headline appears. It’s the first thing the viewer looks at when they land at your profile page. LinkedIn gives you a total of 120 characters to fill this space, so use it very wisely. Use these lines to describe the benefit of connecting with the viewer. You can research how other successful people in your profession and industry write their profile headline and build upon it.
(4) Write a compelling profile summary
Your summary is the 3rd most important part of your profile that a viewer sees after your LinkedIn profile headline and picture. Thus consider it as a free space that LinkedIn is providing you for selling yourself. Again, please research some effective summaries. Remember LinkedIn allows up to 2000 characters. Please do not rush it up by underestimating the power of a good LinkedIn profile summary.
(5) Target relevant people
Refine your search to reach out only to the relevant people.
For example if you are reaching out to Owners, presidents and C-Level people in certain industries, try narrowing your search by company size. Ask yourself a questions like how likely is the CEO of a large company likely to accept your invite compared to a small company ?
LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers a wide variety of search filters that can help you create a highly targeted search. Get creative and spend some time identifying your target market.
(6) Privacy settings
Can everyone see your full name? Set profile viewing options to your name and headline. You can make these changes in your LinkedIn privacy settings.
(7) Be patient and allow some time.
It is also important to note that people are not always active on LinkedIn. Sometimes they log into LinkedIn after a few days or after a week. People will accept your invite only when they are active on LinkedIn. We have seen acceptance rate goes up after some time has lapsed. You can expect to get acceptance even after the campaign has completed as people will see the pending invites whenever they log in to their LinkedIn account.
Happy Networking!